Star Trails over Turtle Lake
Last weekend we were invite to a friends cottage. Aside from enjoying the company of wonderful friends and relaxing in beautiful surroundings I was most excited to try my hand at shooting star trails and the Perseid Meteor Showers that occurred over the weekend.
Here’s one of first attempts at star trails. This was a 15 minute exposure.
Click on the image to enlarge (it really does look better) or to Purchase a Print.
Albion Falls
A belated Happy Canada Day to all and a Happy 4th of July to all my American friends and readers. Hope you all enjoyed the long weekend. We stayed close to home and family and friends this weekend and did something that we don’t do enough of…explore in our own backyard. We took a drive to Hamilton, Ontario which is about an hour outside of Toronto. Hamilton is a port city on the western tip of Lake Ontario and on the Niagara Escarpment. The area is filled with beautiful hiking trails that lead to hidden gems such as Albion Falls.
Click on the image to enlarge (it really does look better) or to Purchase a print.
A Hard Drive Crash, A Day in the Country & An Aspiring Photographer
First I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day, President’s Day and Family Day (if you’re in certain parts of Canada). You may have noticed that I’ve been a bit absent this week. I have a good explanation…my hard-drive crashed 😦
No need to panic though because everything is backed-up on a raid drive and then I have a 3rd back up of all my images. The problem is I’ve been without my Mac for almost a week. See the Mac’s internal hard-drive is less than 3 years old. I had replaced it back then because I needed a larger one. Well it was still under warranty (that’s good) but it will take 7 – 10 days to send it back to the manufacturer and get it back (that’s bad). It should be coming home this week.
My son, Sam is home this week from University for reading week and it’s really nice to have a full house. Since today was family day we took a drive up to Port Carling, Muskoka. Sam has started showing some interest in photography so we did some shooting together today. Unfortunately I can’t process my images until I get my computer back but here’s a shot I took of Sam with my iPhone 6 and processed with Snapseed.
Spadina House – The Garden House
One more from Spadina House (I promise). This is the garden house on the property, which in itself was quite the building.
If you saw my last post, of the back exterior, you’ll know that it was a bright, sunny, beautiful day out. I decided to process this one in black and white to give it a different look and feel.
Click on the image to enlarge (it really does look better) or to Purchase a print.
Spadina House – The Backyard
The last couple of posts I’ve shared some interior shots of two of my favourite rooms in Spading House, the Billiard Room and The Pantry. I thought today I’d share the exterior.
This is the back of the house and part of the backyard.
Click on the image to enlarge (it really does look better) or to Purchase a Print.
2015 My Year in Review
Every year Jim Goldstein runs a project on his blog, JMG Galleries, where he encourages photographers to post their best pictures of the year. It’s a great project and I’ve participated every year. When I started participating about 4 years ago I thought, “what a great way to have pictures seen by a whole new audience.”
That was me when I first started blogging but now there are so many other reasons that I participate. Yes I still like that fact that I may reach a new audience but more than that I find this to be a difficult and yet rewarding exercise. It’s tough to cull through your work and pick what you think may be the best of the year. It really gives me a chance to go though my images (some that I haven’t looked at for almost a year) and decide whether they’re good enough to make the cut of the top 10 or 15. Â I try to review my images from a technical perspective and from a creative one. Certainly I’m drawn to certain images due to the circumstances of where and when they were taken. The picks may not always be perfect and certainly wouldn’t win any awards but art is subjective and what one person views as a masterpiece another make look at and dismiss entirely.
It’s been a busy and rewarding year both on the photographic front and from a family and work stand point. I’ve taken on a new role at work which was unexpected at the beginning of 2015 but I am loving it. The only downside has been that its been so busy that my photography had to take a bit of a back seat.
From a photography perspective I’ve continued to sell prints and license new work which is always very exciting and rewarding. I won’t make any specific commitments for the new year because I know that my day job will still be taking up a lot of my time but learning new photographic techniques and honing my craft is something that I know will always be important and I will find and make the time to do it.
If you have a chance jump on over to Jim Goldstein’s site here in or about the second week of January and he should have a list of year in review post listed for your viewing pleasure. There’s always a great list of photographers on there, you won’t regret it.
As always you can click on the images to enlarge them or to Purchase a Print.
Cuba
Refracted Water Drops
Cuba
Hilton Falls, Ontario
Boston
Muskoka
Lake Ontario
Old Montreal
Jerusalem, Israel
Jerusalem, Israel
Tel Aviv, Israel
Edith Levy Photography 